Small Joys of Life

Small Joys of Life : A story from Mrughavade Farm

 

It was one of those regular visits to Mrughavade farm. This time it was special as Keerthana my 5 year old daughter insisted on joining me. A busy time at the farm as areca nut harvesting is on.

Hummingbird Nest

As I sat in patio on Saturday morning writing my Lekka (accounts of the farm) in my diary, I noticed the patio was literally humming with life. A Brahma kamala flowering creeper had some flimsy looking leaves hanging. Curiosity made me look closer, I could make out it was a camouflage for a beautiful home – a nest weaved out of leaves, small twigs and other garden material.

More keen observation yielded some very pleasant results. Two small birds would come fluttering every once in a while and swoop down on the nest. It took some time for my dull mind to understand all the activity.

The Birds were the parents; they were carrying food in their beaks and as they were swooping down every now and then, a magic would happen! Two bird chicks would come up from inside the nest and open their small mouths in perfect synchronization for the parents to drop the bits of food. It was a family of Humming Birds.

Father - So colorful

The Father Hummer was beautiful in all shades of blue black and had a shimmering coat of feathers. Surprisingly the mother was just plain looking white underbelly with a coat of gray and sand color feathers. My high school knowledge of birds came to mind...peacock the male has all the attraction and peahen is just simple. Actually in the avian world the male has to attract the female and therefore has all the nature’s beauty. Look at the fellow...so attractive.

Mother Bird - A plain Jane

Here is the mother. Isn’t she a plain Jane?

So now the stage is set. Keerthana and I make plans; we have to capture this family in our camera. Keerthi is all excited and so before we go to bed on Saturday night she insists on putting the camera battery for charge over night.

Next day is Sunday. For our photography plan it was the D-Day.

After finishing our breakfast we set up our camera and wait. Sadly I have forgotten to take the Camera Tripod. It will be a test of how steady will be my hands while taking real close-ups. All set, but we have a problem. The parents and chicks are afraid about our presence in the patio that they don’t show up at all.

So delicate-so inquisitive

Will we get some pictures at all before we start back for Bangalore? Patience..My boy...patience! These are small humming birds. Extremely fast, our naked eye cannot make out the flutter of the wings. So patience was needed very badly.

As they say the kids are more brave and curious than the adults. So it was. The chicks were the first to show up, pushing their beaks out from the mouth of the nest. Wow...so lovely. The Chirping started...both chicks were really hungry. The incessant chirping was the call out to the parents, “mom and dad come and feed us, we are hungry”!

Once the chicks called out, the parents became bold too. It was the mother first, swooping down and pushing the bits of food into the chicks.I felt like I was watching a performance by the finest artists on earth.

 

Next it was the turn of the father. He was perched on the coconut tree with a ready grasshopper in his beak.

He swooped down and perched on the nest and instinctively the chicks came up and opened their beaks to take in the food that their father had so lovingly gathered for them.

In the avian world, at least amongst the parents that we were observing, male and female seem to have same responsibilities towards the young.

Watching all this, I could not help think about ourselves, the selfish species of Homo sapiens. How lowly are we in front to these small birds? These birds make do with local materials like leaves and small twigs to build up a house. Totally green and totally recyclable. Built to last for the duration needed to get the young ones ready for their lives. After the young ones are strong enough they just leave the house and go away.

We humans want one house. No we want many houses. Many toilets. Bigger the better. Best in the locality. Always driven by that insane hunger to be better and best among our peers. Green -go to hell, two hoots to the environment.

I have heard low IQ persons being called “bird brained”. Isn’t it better to be bird brained?

When I packed up my camera and started that evening for Shimoga which was our first stop before taking an overnight journey to Bangalore, these were my thoughts on my mind.

The joy of seeing a family at work, the satisfaction of being able to capture some of the interesting moments in the bird’s life brought a smile on my face. Yeah, Keerthi now has another incentive to come to Mrughavade farm, a place thriving with life and life in all its glory. Let me not forget, I was apologetic to that humming bird family for giving them horrible time and disrupting their day by our photography. They must have feared that I am another predator.

I have always found that small joys of life gives greatest happiness. That evening I was very happy very satisfied.

End.

Photos taken using Canon Powershot SX210S Camera on 3^rd Feb 2013.

Written by : Sanjay V.P.,sanjay.vp@gmail.com